Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West

reply to post by Bicent76


Interesting that you would complain about actual news being on the news.

Hold on, I am sure they will begin running stories on celebrities, cross eyed marsupials, and other critical news stories again soon.

Th US only supports the spread of "democracy" when it is in its best interest, and when the party elected is one that the US likes or supports. Otherwise, the democratic process doesn't work in the US's favor or for the US, and the US then wants regime change of some sort to institute a more US, and in the case of the Middle East, Israeli friendly/favorable government.

Originally posted by hezbgal


U.S. and Israel fears democracy in the Middle East otherwise, it will not be able subjugate us Arabs. U.S. says it gives aid to Egypt - that's military aid to suppress the people. The Egyptian police that is throwing the tear gas canister and gun shot - all made in U.S.A. Israel's Netanyahu said that the protesters are against democracy and talking rubbish that the Islamic extremists will take over. Egyptians are intellectuals and fed up with the government corruption.

Watch AlJazeera live - link below.

www.andyworthington.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

hezbgal- Myself, as an U.S. citizen, want to express my solidarity with the all the people's of the Middle East and the rest of the world, who want freedom and democracy in their own countries.
"To be sure, Hosni Mubarak, Israel's longtime ally, deserves all the rath being directed at him. The best time to make any big, hard decision is when you are at your maximium strength. You'll always think and act more clearly. For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had all the leverage he could he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy and build a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood. But Mubarak deliberately maintained the political vacuum between himself and the Islamists so that he could always tell the world, 'It's either me or them.' Now he is trying to reform in a panic with no leverage. Too late."

Quotes by Thomas L. Friedman, nyt op-ed Feb. 2, 2011

reply to post by Daniyal


I am sorry. I only fear what is about to happen. Egypt will not remain "secular" for very much longer.

I have no hatred for the good people of Egypt. But they have turned so far from the West that what vestiges remain are about to be swept away as Islamic law gains ascendancy. I wish very much for the people Egypt to turn, just ever so briefly, and look over their shoulders. The Light of Greece is behind you not in front.

Come back. Please.

Egypt, boat of a million years, is slipping below the horizon.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I suppose its news if you want to study anarchy. What happens next will be the news.

by the way.

"Mubarak's royalist, monarchist pretensions, his plan to install his son Gamal as his successor, truly offended a lot of Egyptians, who found it humiliating. Humiliation is a powerful motivator in the Middle East."

New York Times OP-ED WED., FEB. 2, 2011
By, Maureen Dowd

Originally posted by Erno86
"Mubarak's royalist, monarchist pretensions, his plan to install his son Gamal as his successor, truly offended a lot of Egyptians, who found it humiliating. Humiliation is a powerful motivator in the Middle East."

It's strange that suddenly, the USA does't feel like stumbling in and knocking over statues of dictators...

Quote by: My herione and savior, Maureen Dowd, NYT, FEB. 2

"In 2005, Secretary of State Condi Rice chided the Egyptians to be more democratic, but Mubarak continued to stifle his country's vitality.
W. associated his "freedom agenda" with war.
In another irony, one of the reasons Bush decided to do something about the Arab dictatorships was his belief that they were spawning terrorists. But to try to fullfill his grandoise promise to defeat "every terrorist of global reach,"he needed the cooperation of the same dictators the U.S. has always supported. And he fell back to relying on the help of dictatorships to try to shut down dictatorships. Instead, he shut down the democratization process in 2006 after he and Rice were blindsided by Hamas winning the Palestinian elections."

reply to post by Cuervo


Yeah the US is in a bit of a pickle this time. The dictator was still on our side when his people turned on him. Now we have to end up on the right side of "history." We arent really concerned about actually supporting democracy, note. If we were principle driven what we should do would be clear. Support the will of the people to govern themselves.

But thats not our true goal. Our true goal is to make sure each nation in the region our rich overlords want to extract resources from have a leader that is amenable to that. We run the risk of having the other dictators we support turn on us if we hang Mubarak out to dry. Saddam was easy. Not only had he pissed us off but he was thumbing his nose and generally harassing other powers in the mid-east.

Thats the problem with these dictators in foreign countries. They arent as good at maintaining the illusion of democracy as our leaders here in the west are. They get too power mad, and careless, and piss their people off. Its very important to maintain the illusion of freedom, the illusion of democracy if you want to screw your people out of their nations wealth without having them turn on you. Right America? We have not only had our wealth stolen, they are running up our credit cards setting themselves up around the world before they dump us like a used up whore.

reply to post by hezbgal


Yep, quite right OP. Star and flag.

John Pilger's documentaries brilliantly highlight The US governments fear of true democracies, and its preference for dictators friendly to the US and compliant to it's wishes. They are certainly worth a watch if you haven't seen them yet.

Same op-ed piece by M.D. nyt titled: Bye Bye, Mubarak
Quote by: Robert Kagan, a senior Brookings fellow, neocon and Iraq war advocate who co-founded the presient Working Group on Egypt, a bipartisian group of Middle East experts who wanted to get the administration to press Mubarak to be more democratic.

"We were overly spooked by the victory of Hamas. The great fear that people have with Islamist parties is that, that will be the last election. But we overlearned that lesson and we need to get beyond that panicky response. There's no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society.
What are we going to do- support dictators for the rest of eterntity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East? We've got to put our money where our mouth is.
Obviously, Islam needs to make it's peace with modernity and democracy.But the only way this is going to happen is when poeple speaking for Islam take part in the system. It's incumbent on Islamists who are elected democratically to behave democratically."

Quite a lot of the replies posted here seem to focus on the idea that the only possible successor regime to that of mubarak will be islamic fundamentalist,sharia based jihad supporting,why should this be the case?
I mean do you honestly believe that the Egyptians would exchange one dictatorial regime for another?
I'm afraid that a lot of you seem to be swallowing the scaremongering "official" American line,if we can't control it and it's iin the Middle East it must be Islamic Fundamentalist.

And even if that were to be the case,what right do any of us in the west have in interfering with what should be the true demoocratic wish of the Egyptian people?

What really gets me is the way that the west are sticking their noses in when we are seeing images of American supplied tear gas being deployed,can't they see that the Egyptian people do not want another western controlled and funded diictator?

reply to post by nake13


It IS surprising that there would be so many people complaining that this was some Islamic thing.

You know what it makes me remember? When BP paid all those people to come on here and cheerlead for BP during the spill. When the various political parties pay people to come on boards and try to turn opinion. All the posts about how Wikileaks was a CIA front.

Like what was reported this morning about some of the pro-government protesters in Egypt confessing to a reporter that they worked for a petro chemical company and their employers made them come.

www.cnn.com...

Several CNN journalists heard from pro-Mubarak demonstrators that they worked for the government. Staff from the national petrochemical company said they had been ordered to come and protest.

I would not be surprised if some of these "ooooo terrorists are behind this" posts are made by people who are paid to promote that point of view.

reply to post by mayabong


No. Jihad is the method by which Islam is spread. Jihad is a method not a response.

Where there is Islam, there is Jihad. Always.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Actually it is the innocent people of Egypt who are "in a pickle".

A bloody pickle.

The nefarious powers you see behind the scenes are not nearly as powerful as the open Jihad being waged in Egypt right now. Not even close.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Perhaps it has something to do with Egyptian history. Maybe...

Nah, it has to be BP!